Plane ticket prices between Dublin and Prague have surged, prompting sharp criticism from a Mayo Senator who says airlines should show more respect to Irish soccer fans\n<\/p>\n
This afternoon\u2019s draw confirmed that the Boys in Green will travel to Prague on Wednesday, March 25 for the next stage of their 2027 World Cup journey.<\/p>\n
Within minutes, thousands of Irish fans rushed online to secure their seats, only to be hit with eye-watering prices, with some one-way tickets soaring to \u20ac400.<\/p>\n
Mayo Senator Mark Duffy criticised both Aer Lingus and Ryanair for what he described as sudden and steep fare hikes on routes to and from Prague.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin minutes of the play-off draw being announced, which will see the Republic of Ireland take on Czechia, ticket prices for both Ryanair and Aer Lingus for flights from Dublin to Prague to coincide with the game surged dramatically,\u201d he said, adding that loyal fans were now facing inflated costs to support their team abroad.<\/p>\n
According to Senator Duffy, flights to Prague the day before the match had climbed by 66pc with Aer Lingus, while Ryanair fares jumped by 156pc within an hour of the draw.<\/p>\n
By this evening, Ryanair\u2019s Dublin to Prague flight on Tuesday, March 24 was listed at \u20ac430.<\/p>\n
There were two match-day flights that still had seats available, one priced at \u20ac400.99, the other at \u20ac399.99. For Friday, March 27, Ryanair\u2019s fares had fallen to \u20ac86.99.<\/p>\n
Aer Lingus\u2019 Wednesday, March 25, flight from Dublin to Prague has already sold out.<\/p>\n
A one-way ticket on match day was priced at \u20ac264, yet fares dropped back to \u20ac84 for travel on Friday, March 27.<\/p>\n
Senator Duffy has described the action by airlines as \u201cblatant opportunism\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said return flights to Dublin the morning after the match had risen by 105pc with Ryanair and 102pc with Aer Lingus.<\/p>\n
\u201cIrish soccer fans are being unfairly punished and penalised for their passion and loyalty. This is deeply disappointing as the fans should be celebrated, not exploited,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Fine Gael senator is calling on airlines to reconsider their price increases and \u201cshow respect to the thousands of Irish soccer fans\u201d who want to travel to support their team in Prague.<\/p>\n
He is also asking regulators to step in and determine whether sudden, massive fare increases are consistent with consumer protection laws.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn some cases the fare more than doubled in the space of a half an hour, this cannot be justified in a normal and fair market,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
This article has been published by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plane ticket prices between Dublin and Prague have surged, prompting sharp criticism from a Mayo Senator who says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[41891,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-151281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-charlotte-davis","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}